I have to admit I’ve talked about applying gaming mechanics to applications during design stages. I can’t say it felt right but I’ll certainly think twice about it again. I’m not suggesting I won’t gamify some apps but I won’t use the term lightly having read Gamification is bullshit.

It does, however, raise some larger questions. While on the surface gamification appears to be enterprise software apps pilfering from software games, I have to say I’m not sure the software gaming space can claim ownership over anything but the term gamification. Maybe I’m missing the point but isn’t our education system an example of gamifying learning? Isn’t our demerit points for bad driving gamifying the rules of the road? Heck, where does capitalism and Canadian Tire money fit into all this?

I’m biased in that I don’t hold much love for rewards, carrots and sticks. If you’re interested, I listed some of my favourite reads on these subjects in the post Rewards Yet Again. One of my favourites is Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn.

I agree that gamification tends to be bullshit, however, we were gamifying long before pong came out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 9th, 2011 at 10:02 am and is filed under Software Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.